


Learning All I Know Now, Losing All I Did

by RadioFriday



Series: Talonverse [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily gonna Batfamily, Bisexual Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Clark Kent is over this shit, Dick Grayson POV, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Dick Grayson is not here right now please leave a message, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Instability, Non-Linear Narrative, UNCLE CLARK, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28944828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioFriday/pseuds/RadioFriday
Summary: People make choices all the time.Dick Grayson knows that Robin was a choice. He remembers making that choice. He remembers making choices. So many choices: Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops? Red tie or blue?Nightwing was a choice. Batman-- a reluctant choice, but still a choice. The Gray Son was not a choice and Dick knows, deep down, that that matters.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Talonverse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015761
Comments: 39
Kudos: 184





	Learning All I Know Now, Losing All I Did

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello. This was supposed to be done much closer to Christmas, but I have a hard time writing Dick POV and I wasn't happy with it and finally, I just decided that I was done with it and posting it and it's fine. It's FINE. 
> 
> Title is from Tegan and Sara's "I'm Not Your Hero" which is the most Talonverse song to ever song. Seriously, google that shit and have a good cry with me. I'll wait.

  
  


His name was Dick Grayson. His family tells him that his name is _still_ Dick Grayson, and he lets them call him that, even though it tugs on something in his chest. He doesn’t know what else they should call him, so Dick Grayson it is, even though it’s a dead man’s name. Dick supposes it’s appropriate in a way. He’s not really alive in the traditional sense anymore. 

There are things that are foundational, that Dick knows for certain. He was born on the first day of spring, and he became Robin when he was nine; Nightwing at eighteen.

He was twenty-four when he became Batman and almost twenty-six when he became Nightwing. 

Again. 

And he was twenty-eight when he became the Gray Son of Gotham. 

His masters say-- said-- that he was _always_ the Gray Son of Gotham. That he just needed to be reminded. 

Dick Grayson knows that Robin was a choice. He remembers making that choice. He remembers making choices all the time. So many choices: Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops? Red tie or blue? 

Nightwing was a choice. Batman-- a reluctant choice, but still a choice. The Gray Son was not a choice and Dick knows, deep down, that that _matters_. 

This is what Dick remembers: warm, heavy black sweats pulled over his bright, royal blue leggings. Being further south, Bludhaven’s winters are only slightly less miserable than Gotham’s and Dick's knees ached in the cold of both cities. It used to just be the one he shattered, goofing off with Wally at Titans Tower when he was seventeen. Bruce had been pissed (but then Bruce spent the years between Dick’s ages fifteen through twenty being almost exclusively pissed in Dick’s general direction) and it was the first time Dick convalesced from a major injury on his own, away from the Manor and Alfred and his bed with the excellent mattress and god, it had _sucked_. Even with Donna popping in like the team mom and Wally running, literally, across the country to bring Dick beef rendang from that incredible Malaysian joint a block over from the Tower-- because he made the dare that Dick had accepted that led to Dick falling off of the washing machine (it's a long story) and felt guilty about it. 

Anyway, it used to just be the one knee that got bitchy in the cold, but lately the other started up too and Dick sort of wanted to nab Leslie for a consult but he also sort of didn’t want to do that at all because at his annual physical a few months earlier, he mentioned achiness in his knuckles and wrists and Leslie had mentioned arthritis and Dick had laughed and said, “Leslie, I’m not even thirty!”

And Leslie had sighed and said “You’re closer to thirty than twenty, Dick, and what you all put your bodies through adds another ten years of wear and tear on top of that.”

Dick remembers his parents icing down ankles and shoulders and that their trailer always sort of smelled like aspercreme and bengay and Mary and John were only a few years older than Dick is now when they died but sometimes Dick wonders how long they would have continued to perform. It’s not like there was a mandatory retirement age in their profession but Dick remembers working with a different aerialist family once, during the annual break at Haly’s winter quarters in Juno Beach, Florida. The circus always stopped to rest and develop the next season’s show, from mid-December to the end of February. Dick’s childhood Christmases are defined by palm trees wrapped in twinkle lights, walking to the beach after opening presents, swinging between his parents as they walked the few blocks from their tiny apartment near the Haly facilities to the ocean.

The year Dick was born, John and Mary stayed behind when the show hit the road again-- Dick’s due date was so close-- and that’s why Dick Grayson has a Florida birth certificate. Dick’s parents kept it with other family papers and heirlooms in a safe deposit box in a bank in Jupiter. Bruce kept it in a safe in his office at the Manor, then returned it to Dick (via Clark) when Dick left they weren’t speaking. Dick kept it in a safe in his apartment, with his parents' wedding bands, four thousand dollars emergency cash in small bills of various denominations, two sets of fake identities, and a platinum Rolex Bruce had given him when he graduated from high school that he rarely actually wore. 

Dick wonders where his birth certificate is now, if Bruce keeps it in the safe in his office in the Manor with his New Jersey death certificate. Jason has a New Jersey birth certificate. Tim was actually born in New York City. Damian...Damian was….

Dick doesn’t remember. Dick doesn’t remember a lot of before. He trips over the details. He doesn’t remember Damian’s favorite food or what color Alfred’s hair used to be or how he met Tim. He remembers that Tim used to let him call him “Timmy” but not for a long time now and Dick doesn’t remember why. He remembers Jason being dead but doesn't remember how it happened or how he came back and Dick remembers that Barbara was shot but doesn’t remember how or why or that she’s in a wheelchair now and Dick wonders if it’s because his brain isn’t really alive anymore, that the Court burned out the parts they didn’t think he needed when they went ahead and hollowed him out. 

"Like a caterpillar, metamorphic, from within its cocoon, so shall our greatest talon emerge." Everything with Cobb, with the Court as a whole, was over-dramatic, overly theatrical. Even the performer in Dick had to roll his eyes at half the shit that came out of his mouth.

Even though that eye-roll got him back-handed so hard he split blood. 

Dick had grinned as the gash in his lip healed and said, "Pretty sure owls come out of eggs, Grandpa. Your script might need some adjustments. Maybe we could workshop it sometime."

That got him more than a slap across the face. He was insolent. Disobedient. Defiant to a fault and defiance in any talon was not a fault the Court would overlook, not even for the Gray Son. 

His nerves were never altered the way those of the other talons were. He did not earn it, they said. He would feel every bit of pain he caused his masters with his behavior and then some. It was the only way he would learn, the only way he would come to appreciate the value of his obedience. 

Sometimes he wonders if it would have ended like this if he had just behaved. If he had just given them his body, perhaps they would have left his mind intact.

Dick can strategize just fine, and read people, give and follow instructions; but if he thinks too hard about himself or his family or even something inanimate-- like how Alfred’s cookie tasted like happiness right before he threw it up-- he gets all turned around in his head, like his brain is a labyrinth, and the thoughts fall away before Dick can make them real and it makes Dick doubt that he is real. _Real_ real. 

Dick Grayson knows that he is tangible-- if he pricks his finger it will hurt and bleed (and heal up flawlessly in under 10 seconds) and he has thoughts, yes, but they feel like another person’s thoughts-- the person with the preferences. Dick Grayson’s preferences. Damian sits with him and tells him things as though he is handing Dick puzzle pieces for Dick to press into the proper spaces:

“Your favorite color is blue.”

“Your favorite ice cream is chocolate, but strawberry is a close second.” 

“Your favorite band is The Talking Heads, though I can’t recall any music that you _don’t_ like.” 

They feel like the pieces of someone else’s puzzle. 

Jason tells him:

“You’re Bruce’s favorite. He’ll deny it, but he’s a lying bastard.” 

“Babs is like, your one true love or some shit because she’s the first person you ever kissed but Wally West was your first BJ and God I hate myself for knowing that.” 

“You had a crush on Roy Harper when you were fifteen, which I get, because we all had a crush on Roy Harper when we were fifteen. It’s the whole affable dirtbag thing. Don't you dare tell him I said that.” 

Dick tries to wedge the pieces in place but they’re handing him something solid and warm and he is cold and decayed; it just doesn’t fit together anymore. 

That one winter, the Flying Graysons of Haly’s Circus shared their rehearsal space with the Soaring Andollinis of Cole Bros. Shows. Dick doesn’t remember why. He remembers the twins-- Patria and Pietro-- they were a few years older than him-- and he remembers Papou-- the patriarch of the family and the twins’ grandfather. He was still built like a tank and still flipped and flew with his family and, Dick remembers, could barely open a jar of pickles on some days or stand up straight without wincing and Dick remembers looking at his parents and their ice packs and wondering if that’s where they were headed too. 

Anyway, the Soaring Andollinis disbanded back when Dick was still wearing the pixie boots, but he saw the twins on _America_ ’ _s Got Talent_ a few years ago and realized he was still nursing that crush.

He remembers that like a fact, like something he observed. He doesn't remember what that felt like to be in love. Things can’t love. They can _be_ loved. Talon was loved. He was told by his masters-- _shown_ by his masters--

and they--

he--

Talon presses his legs together and tries to become very small. Talon tries to wedge himself into a narrow space between the cot and the frosted divider hiding the toilet from view. Talon shakes his head and pulls his knees to his chest and the angry one, “Jason,” Dick Grayson supplies, “Jason. Jason. Jason.” 

Talon slams his head into the wall. He does it again. He tears the collar of his shirt and claws at the pale skin underneath and his blood isn’t right. It’s too dark. It smells vaguely decayed, like dead leaves.

Jason is pulling at his hands and petting his hair. His lips are moving but the sound is in and out. 

“--yeah. Alfie, thanks...clothes on the cot...no, we don’t need bandages...just the washcloth... healing up already.” 

There’s a pause and then a clipped-- as clipped as anyone is allowed to get with Alfred-- “Yes. I know you have to tell Bruce.” 

Then, softer, “Dickiebird. Hey. Look at me.” 

Jason’s eyes used to be blue but now they’re green. Jason is a person. Dick’s eyes used to be blue but now they’re yellow. Dick was a person. Talon is a person? No--

“Yeah, Dickie, you’re a person.”

He doesn’t always know when he’s speaking out loud when he gets turned around like this. He waits for a lashing, or the pool-- cold hands, unforgiving, like marble holding him down until he stops screaming, until the parts of his brain that aren’t important anymore are silenced. It’s embarrassing when it happens here. These new masters won’t do what needs to be done to stop it and they stop him when he tries on his own and they’re not his masters, they say. 

There is a small girl with gentle eyes the color of breakfast tea who sits with Dick in the early evening and he keeps forgetting her name and Dick adores her because she doesn’t try to talk to him and she doesn’t try to hand him puzzle pieces to jam imperfectly into the fissures of his brain and she just seems to read, instinctively, when he’s okay with being touched and when touch is too much and he once tried to thank her for being so gracious, but he said something wrong because she smiled like it hurt and said, “Not master. Family.” 

Jason says, “You gotta stop doing this, Dick, or Bruce is never gonna let us take you upstairs.” 

A different voice cuts in. Tim. Timmy. Timbo. “He can’t help it, Jason.” Tim’s eyes have always been blue. Tim has always been a person, “I think he’s having flashbacks.”

“No shit.” 

Dick loses time. He thinks he should be upset by that, but it’s the closest he can come to sleeping and Dick occasionally finds himself wondering, if the Batman, or the others, won’t end him then maybe he could just lose himself in the haze and never come back out. If he isn’t aware that he exists, does he still exist? Would it matter? Dick Grayson is dead and these parts left behind were never meant for sentience. 

Dick thinks he would have been happier just giving himself to the Court. He doesn’t even remember why it mattered so much that he didn’t. 

Batman and Jason are screaming at each other on the other side of the wall when Dick blinks back to the present. The cowl is up, so it’s Batman. That matters. Dick Grayson remembers. It’s both easier and harder to talk to Batman instead of Bruce Wayne and it’s certainly easier to yell at Batman because half the job of being Robin is to yell at Batman. That is a fact. Dick Grayson knows this is a fact because he’s the one who made it so.

Jason snarles, “That doesn’t make any fucking sense, and fuck you for holding any of that against him.” 

Jason is still dressed in his Red Hood gear, but his helmet is on the floor and his domino mask is in his hand and Dick is trying to sense if it’s before or after patrol because if it’s before patrol, then the girl will be here soon and if it’s after, then it will be Timmy or Bruce or Jason. 

“Take the fucking cowl off. I want to talk to Bruce.” 

“No.” 

Jason is trembling, angry, exposed-- Talon remembers from their confrontation in the Bowery. He had found Jason to be easy to read and he had been so close to beating him, to taking his place as the glorious Gray Son that very night, after presenting the severed head of a Bat to Cobb and the High Court. He had been devastated to return to his masters, to return to their disappointment and the punishment he had earned. When Jason sits with him though, he’s glad to have failed. 

Jason doesn’t act like he’s afraid of Dick. Jason wants Dick to get better, but he doesn’t act like Dick needs to be fixed, which is much different from how everyone else regards him, whether they mean to or not. Dick knows that he’s broken. Dick also knows that he can’t be fixed. 

“He’s not getting any better, asshole. He’s deteriorating. Mentally. And what have you done to help him? You keep him locked up and hidden away like this is Jane fucking Eyre.”

Batman’s eyes flicker beneath his milk-white lenses, “I will not endanger anyone else in this family before I know for certain that it’s safe.” 

“Like you knew for certain before you shot him up with a ‘cure’ that almost _killed_ him? Does the JLA even know he’s back? The Titans?”

The cowl finally comes down, Bruce Wayne’s hair matted with sweat. After patrol then. His eyes are ice blue, like the inside of a glacier. Bruce has always been a person. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” 

Jason crosses his arms and squares his shoulders. He’s taller than Bruce. Just barely. If the cowl has been up, Batman would not have taken a step backward, but it’s Bruce now, and Bruce steps back. He mutters,“Clark knows.” 

“Uh huh. And Clark is cool with all of _this._ ” 

Bruce says nothing and Jason nods knowingly, “Of course. Clark doesn’t know _everything_.” 

“You are a part of this family, Jason, but you are not the head of it. 

“I’ve killed too, Bruce. Got a holding cell down here with _my_ name on it?” 

“We are all aware of your previous actions.” 

That’s right. Jason Todd came back from the dead. Eight heads in a duffel bag. But those heads deserved it and Dickiebird killed people who didn’t deserve it and that matters. Dick Grayson knows that that matters.

“That wasn’t _you,_ Dick!” Jason looks over and snaps. He kicks his helmet and swears again, “I hate this conversation.” 

Dick tries to lose himself again. He focuses on the dim lights and the white walls and the white sheets that smell like bleach-- the gym at the Y smelled like bleach too, but it was warm, the air always a little humid with sweat and the sharp tang of chlorine from the pool. Dick kept his bag, his change of clothes, his shampoo and body wash and hair pomade in a cubicle in the men’s locker room, but there were benches lined along the far wall and Dick kept his water bottle there. It had a Batman logo on it-- a Titans secret Santa gift from Wally years ago-- and it made Devon, the guy usually working the desk out front, call him “Gotham Boy” and wave his own Nalgene bottle adorned with several Nightwing stickers at Dick as he signed in.

"Nightwing kicks Batman's ass, Gotham Boy."

"Hell yeah he does," Dick grinned.

The wall on the other side of the gym had tall windows, fogged and frosted from the cold air outside. It had made Dick think of Christmas at the Manor, before everything got complicated. Bruce would let them go home early-- meaning midnight instead of nearly dawn-- and Dick would drink eggnog with Alfred because Bruce detested eggnog (Bruce being a person, with preferences) and for a long, long time it was just Dick and Alfred drinking the eggnog and Bruce with maybe a single glass of brandy in front of the fire, Ace at his feet.

There are others now who like eggnog, but he can't think of who. 

Dick led his class in stretches in a semi-circle on the mats. His bad knee twinged and the other one ached and his mouth suddenly went painfully dry. He felt hot and cold and suddenly couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. He turned to the benches along the wall and the water bottles lined up like little robins in a row. He told his class he’d be right back. He kept trying to swallow against the sandpaper in his mouth. A wave of intense nausea hit hard and fast and he remembered falling to the mats. He remembered a hand on the side of his face and breath that smelled like Juicy Fruit gum-- Darcy Lorde-- Dick told Darcy at least twice a session not to chew gum in the gym but Darcy never listened. 

And then nothing. Glorious nothing. 

Dick aches to crawl back into that. It’s not suicide if you’re already dead and Dick remembers being alive. He liked being alive. He was a person and he was allowed to have preferences and he preferred to be alive. Sometimes being alive hurt. Sometimes Dick got so sad that he stayed in bed for days and his friends worried and he ignored their texts and didn’t eat right or shower for a week, but he also got help for that, because he preferred being alive when he was alive. 

Dick Grayson liked being alive.

Talon isn’t alive. Talon isn’t a person.

A chair cannot self-immolate. A knife cannot draw its own blood. 

There is expensive cologne. Big, timid hands. Brucie had to make an appearance at Wayne Enterprises today. Dick heard Alfred and Damian talking. Brucie had to go to work. Brucie is not a person. Brucie is a costume. The cologne is Brucie’s cologne but the voice is Bruce’s. 

“Alfred said you’re having a bad day.” 

“Always,” Dick chokes out. His voice used to be different. It used to be warmer. He used to sing in the shower. In the car. On patrol. Not particularly well, but well enough. It made people smile. Dick loved to make people smile. Talon-- well it was complicated for Talon. The talon liked to not be hurt but if the talon's masters smiled, it was only because he had done something that would have made Dick Grayson very upset.

Bruce is a big, awkward gargoyle at the end of Dick’s cot. He says, “How can I help? Would you like me to get Damian?” 

No. Dick shakes his head. He loves Damian, he thinks, and he knows it hurts Damian to see him like this. Damian doesn’t understand. Damian can’t _see_. Damian loves his sword, but the sword can’t love him back. Dick thinks he is no different than a sword now, and a sword cannot love, because a sword is not alive 

Damian sits with him every chance he gets, but officially, Damian’s turn is in late afternoon. After school, but before dinner. Damian brings presents: a soft blue quilt and the tattered stuffed elephant, a Superman t-shirt, a small plastic Robin figurine, “This is me,” he said, wryly, “Not you. You did not wear pants. It was appalling.”

“No pants?”

“No.” 

The next time, Damian brought a photograph of five teenagers, grinning, arms wrapped around one another, dressed in varying degrees of garish fashion disasters. Indeed, there is a boy in the center who looks a few years older than Damian is now in a similar uniform, sans pants. 

“You see, I told you.” Damian says. 

Dick points to another boy, on the end of the row, in a red and blue suit that also did not cover his legs, “He’s not wearing pants.” 

“ _He_ lives in the ocean.” Damian paused, considering, “Do you recall his name?” 

Dick tried. He shook his head, panic flaring in his chest hot and fast. 

“These are your friends. Your _best_ friends.” Damian’s voice was edging towards that desperate tone that made Dick ache.

“Can you name _any_ of them?”

“Wally. Donna.” 

“Yes! Very good! Now show them to me. Which one is Donna and which one is Wally?” 

Dick couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make the faces match the names, even though he remembers that he loved these people and they loved him, back when he was a person and--

Sometimes Damian brings the cat and the dog downstairs. The dog is huge and warm when he lays beside Dick at Damian’s instruction and the cat is so soft. They leave when Damian leaves because Dick is dangerous and crazy and might snap and hurt someone or some-- Titus and Alfred are not _things_. They are not people either, and yet Damian loves them and Dick believes the animals love Damian back so maybe it’s like that--

“Dick, no,” Bruce-- not Brucie, not Batman-- _Bruce_ says, “Dick, you’re not a _dog_.”

“Owl,” Dick hears his ruined voice mutter as he drifts, “ _TheCourtofOwlssentencesyoutodie_.” 

Dick Grayson slaps the talon’s face hard-- once, twice-- his lip splits and heals in all of twenty seconds and Bruce’s face flickers from hurt to confused, “My presence obviously isn’t helping,” he says, “I’ll get one of the others.” 

Dick grabs his wrist before Bruce can move. Bruce momentarily tenses, then relaxes when Dick makes no move beyond that. Dick finds something solid inside himself to cling to. He can do this. He can lead rather than follow. He had a costume for that once, he remembers, all the best pieces of himself, all the strongest parts. Yes. 

He raises his head and imagines the comforting tug of the blue mask, a suit-- snug, of his own design. A choice. His choice. Every redesign, every upgrade and improvement and color scheme-- each one entirely his own. Dick Grayson is dead and Talon is a thing, but Nightwing is a costume, a powerful one, one that perhaps he can borrow, just for now, just so he can look at Bruce without flinching away and speak without wavering. 

He forces his body to be powerful, but not frightening. Commanding, but not threatening. He raises his head. He makes eye contact. He doesn’t hesitate. Nightwing is a construct, an idea, and ideas can be shared.

His voice is still wrecked-- nothing he can do about that-- but it’s strong when he says, “I want to speak to Batman.” 

Bruce’s face goes expressionless. He doesn’t need a cowl to wear a mask. None of them do, really. “Alright,” he stands with his back straight and his shoulders back, “Nightwing?.” 

Nightwing smiles, “Hey.” 

“What do you need to say?” 

“Dick Grayson is dead.” 

“No--”

“Yes. He is dead. He was buried in the Wayne family plot, with the ashes of Mary and John tucked under his arm. Clark Kent was a pallbearer, and Dick’s two living brothers, and Roy Harper, and Commissioner Gordon. It was on page 4 of the Gotham Gazette. You were concerned that the attendance of League members would be a risk, so you allowed Clark to represent the JLA because Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are known friends. Harper represented the Titans, because of Wayne’s business dealings with Oliver Queen. It wasn’t impossible to consider that the adopted kid of one rich playboy might be friends with the adopted kid of another rich playboy.” 

“What is your point?”

“You can’t bring him back. Even if you had the science, which you don’t--”

“I will _find_ the science.”

Nightwng continues, but at least tries to make his face look sympathetic, “Many of Dick Grayson’s organs were donated. Not the heart-- for obvious reasons. Gotham Tonite interviewed a woman who received his corneas. Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake hugged her on camera to raise awareness for organ donation. One kidney went to Cleveland, the other to Metropolis. His liver and bone marrow went back to Bludhaven. Skin from his back and thighs went to a firefighter with Gotham’s 8th Ladder Company. This is also all thoroughly documented. Dick Grayson can’t miraculously reappear, alive and well, when half his organs are scattered up and down the Northeast Corridor.” 

“I will figure something out. Jason Todd has a second identity on paper. Dick Grayson can too.” 

“Dick Grayson is dead,” he had hoped that Nightwing could succeed where the rest of him had failed. 

“Damian knows the location of two Lazarus pits--”

“DON’T YOU _DARE_!” The mask is slipping. His hands tangle in his hair, then move to his face, as though pressing a domino back in place. He looks back up at Batman’s steeled expression, “This body is dead and has been dead for almost two years. It is beyond the reach of a Lazarus pit...and you know that.”

Batman nods, “Dick can still have a life.” 

“No he can’t.”

“Hm,” Batman looks thoughtful. He pulls Nightwing by the elbow to stand before him and Nightwing refuses to flinch or pull away, “I want to speak to whomever is beneath the mask. Show me.” 

Dick backs away slowly until he hits the smooth wall of the cell and fights the urge to sink to the floor, to wrap himself up in the bedding and wait to dissociate for a few hours. He shakes his head, “I don’t...I don’t know…” 

“If it’s not Dick Grayson and it’s not the talon, then who is it?”

“Stop. _Stop_.” He’s pawing at his face, at the relic of his beloved mask as it crumbles in his hands-- ash and dust and then blood beneath his nails-- any of the others would have come running at this point, would have pressed kisses to his temple and carefully lowered his traitorous hands, but not Batman, “I don’t know.” 

“That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing there,” Batman’s voice cracks uncharacteristically, “Please Dick--”

He blinks awake. _Awake_. The relief is short-lived when he catches the faintly bitter aftertaste a strong sedative leaves on the back of his tongue. Someone new is here, brushing the unruly curls behind Dick’s ear and away from his forehead like he’s a child. This man is wearing glasses he doesn’t need and his hands are indestructible but so painfully gentle. Warm. Dick leans into the warmth and sighs, “Uncle Clark.” 

Clark stops petting him, “You remember?” 

Dick shrugs, “It’s…” He shakes his head, “All messed up.” He tries to remember how he got here: restrained again, sedated again, but thankfully not in the cold field. He’s still in the little white cell. He’s still wrapped in the blue quilt. It’s quiet and warm and Dick’s breath catches, “Did I hurt anyone?”

“Just yourself.” 

“Good.”

Clark shakes his head and sighs and looks so sad. It looks out of place. Batman and his brood are supposed to be the sad superheroes. Superman is supposed to be the light. “Bruce didn’t...Bruce wasn’t _honest_ with me. I didn’t know the whole situation.”

Dick wonders who told and _what_ they told and what this means. Will others be coming to try to fix him? He thinks about being prodded and examined, drugged up and beaten down in an effort to mold him into the shape they all want him to be. It will be excruciating and humiliating. He will die a thousand deaths as they try to put the pieces wherever they want, whether those pieces still fit or not. 

“He’s trying,” Dick rasps. 

Clark’s face softens, “I know he is, kiddo.” 

Dick turns away as much as the soft cuffs will allow. His legs are free, which makes sense. It's hard to claw yourself with your toes, even if you've got world-class acrobat and undead assassin flexibility. He studies the smooth white wall until he feels he is a part of its soothing emptiness. He draws a deep, slow, cleansing breath and says "You aren't human." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Clark tilt his head, "But you're a person." 

"That's right, Dick." 

Dick nods and keeps staring at the wall, turning that thought around and around in the labyrinth of his mind. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
